Abstract

The effect of forest institution connectedness, incentive participation program, and social capital on public participation and welfare as mediators of forest management were conducted in the forest conservation area of Baluran National Park, East Java, Indonesia. The problem facing this area is that the five buffer villages of Wonorejo, Sumber Waru, Sumber Anyar, Bajul Mati, and Watu Kebo exploit the forest's resources for their own economic reasons. The purposes of this research are to analyze and explain: (1) the effect of the forest institutions connectedness on public participation; (2) how welfare mediates forest institutions connectedness to public participation; (3) the effect of incentive participation programs on public participation; (4) how welfare mediates the effect of incentive participation programs on public participation; (5) the social effect capital on public participation; (6) how welfare mediates social capital's effect toward public participation; and (7) welfare's effect on public participation. The survey method and questionnaires were used for a proportional random sampling of 170 respondents. They are 120 households that were members of the forestry community training center and 50 respondents from the staff of Baluran National Park. Validity and reliability testing of instruments and hypothesis were performed using WarpPLS 5.0 software. The results show: (1) forest institutions connectedness to public participation does not contribute positive significant effect; (2) the effect of forest institution that is related to public participation has been fully mediated by welfare; (3) incentive participation programs have a positive significant effect on public participation; (4) welfare partially mediates the effect of incentive participation programs on public participation; (5) social capital has a positive significant effect on public participation; (6) welfare mediates social capital's effect on public participation; and (7) welfare has a positive significant effect toward optimizing public participation in forest conservation management in the Baluran National Park. Practical implications of this research are: (1) the contribution of nontimber forest products

as a proportion of families' income is between 12.99% and 28.46%; and (2) based on the classification of public participation especially in four programs (participation in planning program, implementation, benefit-sharing, and evaluation and monitoring) that are low level at 47.1%, middle level at 33.5%, and high level at 19.4%.

[19], (6) social capital effect on public welfare by Grootaet [20] and Narayan and Pritchett [21], (8) how welfare effect on public participation in development pro-

The Effect of Forest Institution Connectedness, Incentive Participation Program, and Social…

The issue of differences in measurement of incentive participation program is a gap in this research. Adhikari et al. [12] measured incentive participation program with six indicators, they are: (1) access to forests and availability of forest products, (2) financial support to supplement household income, (3) social security and cohesion through local institution building, (4) investment in local community infrastructure and development, (5) well-defined & enforced property rights over forest resources assigned to the users, and (6) payment for environmental services. The research's purposes of Adhikari et al. [12] are: (1) to determine the relationships between different incentive participation program and the level of public participation of user group members; (2) to explore how households might respond to any changes in the incentive participation program, in terms of their decision to participate in common property resource governance; and (3) to propose/recommend how organizational incentive participation program can be better integrated in order to induce more effective public participation of users in the governance and management of property resources. The indicators of public participation were measured based on (1) membership length; (2) representation on the executive committee; (3) level of public participation in meetings, (4) in decision-making,

While Djamhuri [13] measured incentive participation program with seven indicators, they are: (1) forest village population); (2) villages forests/WPH; (3) number of forest village community (LMDH) trustee board members; (4) percentage of Tumpang Sari Farmers on the LMDH trustee board; (5) tree coverage on foundation of the LMDH; (6) current tree coverage; (7) trustee board members attendance of routine meetings. The indicative numbers of LMDH trustee board members and percentage of Tumpang Sari Farmers on LMDH trustee board consist of: (1) formal education; (2) household annual income; (3) use of feed/fodder from state forest land; and (4) use of firewood from forest land. Djamhuri [13] said Tumpang Sari is an incentive participation program which is traditional in forest management. Government and society integration provides a better incentive participation program in the hope that the public will be will contribute in the state forest management. Kaseya and Kihonge [14] measured incentive participation program with three indicators, they are: (1) civic education, (2) financial incentives both transport and lunch allowances, and (3) scheduling of forums/meetings. The study result was corroborated by the findings from the open interview which indicated that 62.5% of the respondents concurred that financial incentives are offered to participants. Measurements of incentive participation program in this research refers to [12], but

The second gap of this research is the differences of social capital's measurements done by Grootaet [20] and Narayan and Pritchett [21]. Grootaet [20] measured social capital into six dimension of social capital, they are: (1) density of membership, (2) heterogeneity index, (3) meeting attendance, (4) decision making

Narayan and Pritchett [21] measured social capital into six variables, they are: (1) heterogeneity members, (2) inclusiveness members, and (3) performances members. Social capital's indicators consist of: (1) membership, (2) characteristic of

Measurement of social capital in this study refers to Grootaet [20], who measures social capital as a factor in the reduction of poverty and increase in prosperity, but indicators of social capital of this research based on research object condition. Welfare provision would increase the role of public participation in development.

grams Rahut et al. [15] and Akamani and Hall [22].

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84674

and (5) in implementation; and (6) overall benefits.

its indicators are based on research object conditions.

membership; (3) values and individual's behaviors.

21

index, (5) membership dues, and (6) community orientation.

Keywords: incentive participation program, social capital, welfare, public participation, social forestry management
